Of Shrouds and Shattered Hearts
by TackAttack
Summary: Because sometimes it's the ones left behind that need the remembering. 'Death leaves a heartache no one can heal and love leaves a memory no one can steal.' A collection.
1. Chapter 1

Written for (Yew's) BroTP bootcamp, hosted at Of Prompts and Challenges forum. Prompt used was 'paper'.

I do not own PJO.

**Crystal Tears and Realizations**

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You know, the ones we love never really leave us. You can always find them right here, in your heart.

-Sirius Black, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, movie-verse

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The spear pieces her heart and she falls in slow motion.

The battle slows to a crawl.

The blonde girl, runs, runs to the fallen Hunter. She pulls the spear out, touches the chapped lips where the breath is dying, fingers stick in the crimson liquid staining the white parka death red, gasps for her own breath as the world revolves slowly, round and round and round. Throws herself against the body when the white dove has soared away into the night, the very stars shifting to make way for it.

"No, Thalia, _no!"_

* * *

Days later, fingers clutch a ragged piece of paper, all that's left, for the Hunter was never fond of material things. The worn parchment almost rips when she tries to open it.

Inside are five words, obviously written a while ago. GIVE 'EM HELL FOR ME.

And the tears she's kept back for so long stain the feathery edges of the paper, and the silent sobs shake her small frame, and right now nothing matters except _Thalia's not coming back. _

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The funeral at Camp Half-Blood is a solemn ceremony.

The Hunter's shroud is plain silver, with a lightning bolt etched in black in the center. She watches it go up in flames with dead eyes.

When it's time for her to say her final respects, she simply says, "She was my friend."

In her eyes, there is nothing else to say. And there isn't ever anything you can say that will do even the slightest justice to a life lived to the fullest.

Unbeknownst to her, Thalia is watching. And she is smiling.

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Hope you enjoyed! Reviews are very much appreciated. And for all of you who didn't catch it, the pairing is Annabeth/Thalia.


	2. Chapter 2

Prompt used is ignite.

I do not own PJO.

**Avenging Angels**

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"Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell."  
― Edna St. Vincent Millay

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Everything is burning, smoke filling the air in thick gray swirls, obliterating everything but the girl dying in front of him. "Annabeth, no!"

This feels like the time when she took the poisoned knife in the shoulder for him, but it's not. He can't save her this time. The wound is too deep.

Already her eyes are becoming glassy, her breathing ragged, coughing up blood.

His hands flutter over her body like butterflies, not knowing quite what to do. No one else can help him, no one even _knows _what Annabeth just did.

She smiles faintly. A smear of blood is on her chapped lips, and he wipes it gently away with his fingers.

"You'd better win, Seaweed Brain, you'd better beat her, because I didn't do this for nothing."

"I won't," he says, holding her close. A tear lands on her face, and she looks up at him, grey eyes more innocent than he's ever seen them.

"Don't cry," she says, and with a trembling hand brushes a stray tear from his cheek. This simple gesture is almost too much.

He nods shakily. Her chest is barely moving now, and the circle of blood is spreading fast, soaking the entire front of her shirt.

Her eyes seek his gaze. "I'll be waiting for you," she whispers. He clutches her tighter to him, fingers closing around hers in response. "Keep living for me."

And then she's gone, and her fingers relax in his grip, and her eyes are lifeless. He bows his head and the tears come streaming down his face while the battle rages around them. He doesn't even notice. All that matters is that Annabeth is _gone and she's not coming back. _Images of Annabeth fill his mind, telling him he drooled in his sleep when he first met her, freaking out at the spiders on their first quest, sparring with him at camp, telling him off for one thing or another; moments where Annabeth is real and warm and very much alive. He's surrounded in sunshine blond hair, sparkling grey eyes, and warm tanned skin. He could stay here, in this fog with Annabeth, forever.

Someone's shaking his shoulder frantically. He doesn't respond, trying to make them go away and leave him alone, but Jason will not be denied.

"Percy!" Jason's voice cuts through the fog, dissolving it into a thousand shattered memories that float away on the wind.

Jason's kneeling in front of him, one hand on his shoulder. His eyes bore into Percy's. "There's no time. We have to keep fighting. Are you okay?"

He's floating, floating away.

Annabeth's voice, sharp and crisp, brings him back to reality with a jolt, even though her voice is barely more than a whisper. "_Keep living for me_."

"Percy?"

"Yeah," he says, rubbing his face with one hand. Riptide appears in his hand and he's back in the fray, but it's with a new energy. He's got someone to avenge.

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Hope you enjoyed! Reviews are greatly appreciated.


	3. Chapter 3

Prompt used is Frozen Heart.

I do not own PJO.

**Hearts Of Shattered Glass**

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Be careful; the ones that make you smile are the same ones that can shatter your heart.

-Unknown

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She should have realized that he died the moment she did, that the moment the sword pierced her heart, something died in him as well, because _how _could it not, with how close they were, how _inseparable _they were, protecting and fighting and loving. But how could she have known that when she left him, his heart would shatter into a thousand glass pieces, how could she have known he would use ice to glue the pieces back together?

She looks into his eyes, desperately searching for the boy she used to know, the one with summer sky eyes and a dimple in his cheek, but he's not there. A stranger inhabits his body instead, a cold calculating man with rough jagged edges and frigid eyes that freeze you from the inside out.

He used to never be afraid of her. Now his pupils are dilated in terror, his sword flung somewhere in the ravine four feet behind him.

"Thalia-" His voice is rough, hoarse. He stretches his hand out towards her. "Thalia-please-"

She nearly gives in, because she's never been able to resist him for anything. "You betrayed us!" She hisses venomously. "You betrayed ME! You promised, Luke. You promised." Her voice catches traitorously. She blinks fast, pushes the tears back down.

"That was a long time ago, Thalia," he says softly. "We were kids."

"So you're saying none of that matters anymore? What we had?"

"Kids grow up, Sparky. You know that."

And it's her pet name, thrown so carelessly from his lips, that sends her over the edge. Her spear jabs out at his chest, and he takes a step back to avoid it. His foot never touches the rock.

With a terrified scream, he falls, ripping himself out of her heart. She watches him fall.

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Hope you enjoyed! Reviews are greatly appreciated.


	4. Chapter 4

Prompt used is jump.

I do not own PJO.

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And can it be that in a world so full and busy the loss of one creature makes a void so wide and deep that nothing but the width and depth of eternity can fill it up?

-Charles Dickens

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**The Madness That Has Swallowed Me**

All it takes is a second to end a life. One decision leading to the split-second where the heart stops and the breath ends and the soul escapes the ties of mortality. One second to shatter hearts with grief and create gaping holes in others' lives.

It takes one second to make a decision to end a life. One decision leading to moment where muscles drive the spear home, irrevocably deep, to the point of no return. One second to regret for the rest of your life.

* * *

They all agree that it wasn't his fault, that he was driven mad by the forces that protect the Doors of Death, that it was someone else acting through him. They sound like they're trying to convince themselves.

All he remembers is his weapon descending towards her, that moment where he had the chance to STOPSTOPSTOP- and he didn't take it. It's only when he sees her impaled on his sword, laying still and silent on the dusty ground, does it hit him.

They say they don't hold it against him, they say they aren't mad, but he can feel the caution they exercise around him, as though he's a ticking time bomb. He feeds his guilt with it.

He withdraws from everyone, stays hidden in the Zeus cabin, where the marbleized statue of Zeus seems to stare reproachfully at him. _You killed her, _the silence whispers. _You killed her. _

His dreams become the same. A replay of her death, and when he comes to himself and realizes what he's done, he looks up and sees a jagged cliff edge. The cliff gets closer and closer every day.

He's hanging on a thread of sanity, slowly unraveling in the wind. It's a month after her death, (murder), when he jumps from the sinking sand of sanity, over the cliff and plummets, down, down, down, into the depths of insanity, where nothing matters.

_It's better that way._

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**Pairing is Jason/Piper, for those of you who didn't catch it, and POV is Jason's.**

**Let me know what you think!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Prompt: Gasp**

**I do not own PJO**

**For the Sorrow That Burns Within Me**

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"She lived for those she loved and those she loved remember."

-Author Unknown

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A gasp escapes from between her parted lips, red and bitten with worry, and she falls.

Her body curves to the ground softly, gracefully, even as the last of the sand slips through the hourglass and her spirit ghosts away. By the time he gets to her in the thick of the smoky dust that wafts from the destroyed room, her eyes are vacant and glassy.

A wisp of mousy brown hair is caught in the crook of her mouth. A stain of crimson grows larger and larger around the massive tear in her shirt, a souvenir of the sword that stole her away from him.

He cradles her limp head in his lap and his salty tears fall _pitter-patter _on her dead body and the sound that forces its way through his throat is inhuman. And as the dust settles there is nothing but a sorrow-drenched boy clutching his lifeless mother as the world falls down around him.

For the life of a demigod is never easy.

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**Pairing is Sally/Percy. **

**Review!**


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